I don't know anything about any of the politics involved in this, but I wondered the same thing upon reading the article. On the one hand, it is hard to imagine what I would consider a decent excuse for being systematically rude to people of a particular organization or affiliation, even less instructing others to do so... even less still when one's art is supposed to be about 'harmony'. The experiences in the article seem to be evidence of this. On the other hand, why wouldn't Mr, Homma have gone to someone in charge and asked them directly what was going on and why? Even if the response was denial or evasion on the part of whomever he consulted, an account of that exchange would have made the article's case much more compelling.

I'm grateful to Sensei Homma for writing the article in the fashion that he did. It came at a very important point during a similar incident here in California. From a journalistic point of view, it was much more relevant to the population of aikidoka to have written an open and heartfelt article based on his senses and experience
than to have mired it into some aiki governmental complaint beaurocracy. As you see, given the variety of responses here, it may have taken him a very long time to validate his impressions through someone elses lense so that he could share his impressions. None of us who have gotten to hear him or even talk about this very alive subject.
We can all have room to speak, especially in America where that is our specialty, and we can disagree, and we can discourse.
Thank You to people who speak out.